Ever wonder if you should be investing your baseball card money into a bunch of Topps Update (TU) RC PSA 10s or one Bowman Chrome (BC) 1st Auto PSA 10? Well, here’s your answer with data of Juan Soto cards.
Before jumping into this, there are a few pieces of information you need to know before proceeding. 1) The time period selected is from August 1 – October 30 (the day the World Series was won). 2) A BC 1st Auto PSA 10 sold for $600 via auction on August 1. TU RC PSA 10s were worth $26.50 on August 1, which means you could get 22.64 TU RC PSA 10s for the cost of one BC 1st Auto PSA 10. For the time period selected, all of the TU RC PSA 10 auction values were made relative to the value of the BC Auto PSA 10, so we could compare these metrics. 3) Just because this is the circumstance for Juan Soto doesn’t mean it can be applied to every single player.
Now that we got that out of the way, let’s look at the numbers. You could’ve bought (1) BC Auto PSA 10 for $600 on August 1st or (22.64) TU RC PSA 10s on August 1st. If you chose the BC, you’d have a $1,374 card on the day they won the World Series. If you chose the 22.64 Update RC PSA 10s, you’d have $1,711 in cards on the same day. The Update RC PSA 10s rose 185%, while the BC Auto rose 129%. Looking at that data alone, it makes sense to have went with the TU PSA 10s; however, is it realistic?You would’ve had to have locked in ~23 TU PSA 10s for $26.50. You also would’ve needed to sell ~23 TU PSA 10s at $75 each the night they won the World Series. It takes a lot more work, storage, and time to manage 23 cards versus 1 card. The question you must ask yourself is this: is your time and risk of sales variance worth the possible $350 difference? If it’s yes, go with the Topps Update lot. If it’s no, go with the Bowman Chrome Auto. What are you investing in: Topps RC PSA 10s or Bowman Chrome 1st Auto PSA 10s?
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